The Novel in French (350-0-20)

Instructors

Scott Durham
8474914660
1860 S. Campus Drive, Crowe Hall #2-141

Meeting Info

Locy Hall 314: Mon, Wed 2:00PM - 3:20PM

Overview of class

It is often said that we can only understand a literary work as a product of its historical moment, but some of the most important works of modern fiction can also be understood as being written not only as a reflection of, but also against their time—against its values, cultural practices and forms of social life. In this class, we will examine the very different narrative and aesthetic strategies through which five of the most significant novelists in French—Honoré de Balzac, Gustave Flaubert, André Gide, Georges Bataille and Assia Djebar—carry out such a critique. They do so sometimes by showing how the desires, experiences and narrative possibilities of their characters are both shaped and limited by historically specific forms of life (as in Balzac and Flaubert's realist portrayals of life in 19th-century France), and sometimes by seeking to go beyond those limits by reconstructing alternative histories that allow us to rediscover forgotten forms of experience and marginalized forms of life (as in the historicist dreams of Flaubert, the transgressive narratives of Gide and Bataille, and Djebar's contrapuntal retellings of the history of French colonialism in Algeria).

Teaching Method

Discussion and lecture

Evaluation Method

Class participation; midterm paper; final paper

Class Materials (Required)

Balzac, Le père Goriot ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 2080712993
Bataille, Le bleu du ciel ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 226400097X
Flaubert, Trois Contes ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 2080206656
Gide, L'immoraliste ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9782070362295
Djebar, L'amour, la fantasia ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9782253151272

Enrollment Requirements

Enrollment Requirements: Reserved for French Majors & Minors. Prerequisite: Students must have completed FRENCH 271-0, FRENCH 272-0, or FRENCH 273-0. Other students may register with instructor permission.